Re:Policies that make the poor less poor
by JoeAltmaier on Monday June 21, 2021 @05:10PM
(#27584541)
This is the big lie of opponents to the UBI. Nobody is doing much of anything so somebody can have a toaster. It's made in an automated factory from automated delivery of automatedly accumulated raw materials.
Yes, yes, of course some engineers and truck driver and so on were involved. But one person for every 10,000 toasters, because automation.
The lie comes in when the equivalency is made between somebody getting a 'free' anything, and somebody had to sacrifice for that, or work for that. This is no longer the case, and hasn't been for decades.
Automation has made it possible to provide for almost everybody, with a tiny fraction of the inputs it used to take 50 years ago. But folks who's impression of what a factory is, or what work means was made in the 1950's keep exclaiming incredulously "Who will make things, if everybody has a UBI?!"
At root I blame the Protestant Work Ethic. Well-meaning folks want to keep believing that hard work results in a commensurate benefit. This has been a diminishing force in America at least, for decades. In our lifetimes it will disappear.
Yes, yes, of course some engineers and truck driver and so on were involved. But one person for every 10,000 toasters, because automation.
The lie comes in when the equivalency is made between somebody getting a 'free' anything, and somebody had to sacrifice for that, or work for that. This is no longer the case, and hasn't been for decades.
Automation has made it possible to provide for almost everybody, with a tiny fraction of the inputs it used to take 50 years ago. But folks who's impression of what a factory is, or what work means was made in the 1950's keep exclaiming incredulously "Who will make things, if everybody has a UBI?!"
At root I blame the Protestant Work Ethic. Well-meaning folks want to keep believing that hard work results in a commensurate benefit. This has been a diminishing force in America at least, for decades. In our lifetimes it will disappear.